The Quatro would not stop them, and neither would Eresos. He felt like he’d already bent them both to his will.
Ahead, the tips of the settlement’s buildings crested the horizon, and less than a minute later, they arrived.
The village was surrounded by a ring of Quatro corpses.
Oneiri Team slowed, wary of running into whoever had killed the Quatro, but also of causing undue damage to the property of a Darkstream client as they strode between the buildings.
A village green sat at the center of town, and there they found a foursome of men in motley dress, sitting at a picnic table, each heavily armed.
“Who are you?” Gabe said, the mech amplifying his voice so that it became a deafening bellow. The other mechs spread out, servomotors buzzing as they surveyed the surrounding buildings.
The largest of the men—which was saying something—rose to his feet, hands on hips. Pistols hung from crisscrossed holsters not far from those hands, and the barrel of an SL-17 poked over his shoulder.
“Well, I’m Saul. As for these others, all you need to know is that we’re all soldiers of Red Company.”
“Never heard of it,” Gabe said.
“And I’ll never have to listen to you say that again, will I? You’ve heard of Red Company now, you big metal bastard, and you’ll keep hearing of us. We just finished saving New Gower from the Quatro, and we’re just getting warmed up.”
“New Gower has a contract with Darkstream.”
“Wrong. They had a contract with Darkstream. Now they have one with us.”
“Bull. Why would they break a deal with the leading defense contractor in the system?”
“Little thing I like to call market competition. I know you haven’t had to experience that since arriving in this system, but you’d better get used to it, because our terms aren’t nearly as ridiculous as yours.”
“Our contract contained some pretty serious repercussions for violating it. New Gower’s council knows that.”
Reaching behind his back, Saul unlimbered the assault rifle, holding it casually across his chest. “They also know that we’ll protect them from you, too, if need be.”
Gabe laughed. “You can’t withstand Darkstream. We’ll crush you.”
“Actually, with a war brewing between you and the Quatro, I expect we probably can. But go ahead. Try to fight us. We have contingents stationed all over Eresos. See what happens to the contracts we haven’t poached yet when you leave your clients to the Quatro while you attempt to put us down.”
The other three joined Saul in standing. One of them held a rocket launcher, which he leveled straight at the face of Gabe’s mech.
Richaud stepped forward, leveling twin autocannons at the man threatening Gabe. “Let’s waste ’em, sir.”
“Before you do,” Saul said, “you may want to have another look around.”
Gabe did, and so did the other mech pilots. Men and women as shabbily dressed as the four before them revealed themselves from positions all around—narrow alleys, doorways, rooftops. Most of them bore heavy artillery, including rocket launchers, grenade launchers, and at least two heavy machine guns on tripods.
Gabe turned back to glare at Saul, though of course the man wouldn’t see the expression.
“You haven’t seen what the MIMAS mechs can do,” Gabe growled.
“Neither have you, I expect,” the man said, as calm as ever. “You haven’t experienced their full potential, and neither have you learned their limitations. If you want to see how you do against the heat we’re packing, be my guest. We’re eager for the challenge. But consider what kind of message it’ll send to the clients you have left, when you tear New Gower apart in an effort to get all of us. Consider what Bronson might have to say to you, if you don’t have the brain cells to put it together yourself.”
“How do you know Bronson?”
“We know a lot more about you than you do about us, evidently.”
Even in the dream, Gabe’s body felt hot with anger. But Saul was right. Engaging here, now, without seeing how the board felt about it…it wasn’t a good idea.
“Wait until the Quatro come in force,” Gabe said. “See how cocky you feel then.”
“We’ll take them.”
“You’ll die. You don’t have mechs.”
Saul smiled. “Maybe we’ll end up with some soon enough. Where do you think we got these guns?” The burly man hefted his gun a little. “Stay safe, you hear?”
As Oneiri Team jogged out of New Gower, followed by the raucous laughter of Red Company, Gabe got in touch with Bronson. The man appeared, and the dream rendered him hovering along the ground near Gabe to keep pace.
He flushed scarlet when Gabe told him the news—a rare departure from his usual sarcasm-laced calm.
“How dare they,” he seethed. “They have no idea what’s coming to them! Way tougher men than them have gotten what they deserved after screwing with me.”
“Their leader seemed to imply they got their artillery from Darkstream. I recognized an SL-17 strapped to his back.”
Bronson grimaced, but seemed to take a deep breath, regaining some of his composure. “Like hell they got it from Darkstream. They got theirs the same way the Quatro got theirs—by killing. We’ll deal with this Red Company soon, but we can’t just yet. There are reports of Quatro massing near Plenitos, Roach. We’re expecting an attack—the worst one yet. I need you to assemble the reserve battalion and start making preparations to begin the journey there.”
Chapter 43
So Long as the Walls Hold
It had taken a week and a half to get the battalion marshaled and ready for the journey south to Eresos’ capital, with the supplies that such a trip would require.
After that, their nonlinear route through the complex system of Gatherer paths combined with the distance between the two cities meant the journey south lasted nearly two months.
By that time, the siege of Plenitos was already well underway.
Plenitos had been built on a lake, which, Gabe had read on the system net, was larger than the biggest Great Lake back on Old Earth.
Trying to access it by land would have been stupid, given the legion of Quatro that surrounded it, but the aliens had no water craft, giving the mech pilots full access to the city—along with any other human who cared to cross the water. The crossing would take four days, but it was better than getting intercepted by the enemy.
As a barge neared the beach where they waited, Gabe smirked within the dream.
If the Quatro wanted to pull off an actual siege, they’d have to surround the entire lake. No matter how many numbers they have, there’s no way they can support that.
His smirk soon faded, however.
That could mean they don’t expect their siege to last very long. Meaning they think they have a way inside the city.
The city had been built atop solid rock, making tunneling difficult. Maybe the Quatro were too stupid to have figured that out in advance.
And not so long ago, he would have believed that. But not now. The aliens were proving themselves to be more formidable with every passing day.
And the sheer number of them that had gathered to pressure Plenitos—that was the truly staggering thing. On the satellite images of the city and the surrounding area, which Bronson had sent Gabe to review on his implant, the Quatro presence appeared as a single dark mass.
As he stepped onto the sturdy barge, he was surprised to notice Arkady Black standing near the bow.
The man was a fellow Darkstream employee, a captain, and also head of the security force charged with protecting Plenitos. Of every contract the company held in the Steele System, this one was the most lucrative, and the board had trusted Black with its execution.
Gabe strode over to the man, coming to attention and saluting.
“Not so close,” Arkady said, holding up a warning hand. “Back up a step, Roach. You don’t know how imposing you are inside that thing.”
“Sor
ry, sir.” Gabe took a step back, bumping into Henrietta Jin, who’d followed too closely behind.
“Hey!” she yelled. “There’s not much room on this tub, you know. Not with all of us here.”
“Shut up,” he muttered, then turned back to face Black. “I’m surprised to find you aboard, sir. We could have easily conducted a war meeting via lucid, or even using our implants.”
Arkady Black barked laughter. “I suppose I should have expected a man who signed up to be a robot would place that much trust in technology. Here’s how this is actually going to go: you’re going to step out of that mech and switch off your implant. Then you’re going to join me belowdecks, in a chamber I’ve had swept for bugs.”
Gabe tried not to sound as hesitant as he felt: “I don’t think the Quatro have the tech to intercept our communications, sir.”
“We don’t know what they have, Roach. They’ve already surprised us a hundred times since last Tuesday. Plus, we have this infernal Red Company to contend with, now, and we already know how crafty humans are.” Black’s bushy eyebrows knitted together. “I’m confident you’ll follow the order I’ve given you, Roach, but I’m beginning to wonder about promptness. Has living inside a hunk of metal made you forget about the importance of the chain of command?”
“No, sir.” Gabe ordered the mech to inject his body with the sedative’s antagonist, and then he crawled backward down the ramp that unfurled to let him out, his legs moving rather stiffly. After spending the journey to Plenitos inside the mech, other than nightly PT with the rest of Oneiri, Gabe had developed a distinct reluctance to leave the machine. Outside it, he felt diminished.
That’s dangerous. After this battle, we need a long break from the MIMAS mechs.
Black met him at the side of the mech, saluting for the first time. Gabe saluted back, which made the captain smile.
“Good to see an actual salute, from an actual human being.” The smile faltered, then, as he caught sight of the track marks dotting Gabe’s bare forearm. “You look like a junkie, son.”
“Part of the job, sir.”
“Hmm.”
The chamber Black had selected for their meeting must have been pretty easy to sweep for bugs, considering how tiny it was. A school desk of a table made for the only furniture, and both men loomed over it, studying a single-use tablet where Black called up battle plans.
“So long as the walls hold, we’re fine, in theory,” Black said, running his finger along the thick, dark line that indicated them. “The Quatro can’t tunnel here, as I’m sure you’ve figured out already, and the walls are strong. But they must be gathering for a reason.”
“Yeah.”
“Either way, we can’t very well let them camp out in front of the walls of Plenitos. The citizens are feeling pretty spunky right now—we’ve rallied them with talk of resistance, justice, and a little vengeance sprinkled in. Even the beggars are getting into the spirit of things. It won’t last, though. Letting Quatro trample the fields in front of Plenitos is a sign of weakness, and one we can’t afford to let go on for long. Darkstream must continue to be seen as the dominant force in the system, which is doubly important with these cursed mercenaries springing up like weeds.”
“Why do you think they’re acting now, sir? They’ve always just roamed the countryside, attacking the weakest villages—the ones too poor to do anything but provide for their own defense.”
Black nodded. “Such as it is. But I’m surprised to hear you asking me this question, Roach. The reverse seems much likelier. You have Bronson’s ear more than almost anyone, and Bronson has the board’s.”
Shaking his head, Gabe said, “You know as much as I do, sir.”
“I see. Well, either way, in my view, the only thing strange about the mercenaries’ behavior is that it no longer serves Darkstream interests.”
Black’s eyes tracked Gabe’s carefully as he answered. “How do you mean?”
“Do you really not know, or are you just playing dumb, son?” Shaking his head, Black said, “Doubt you’d tell me either way. Back when the raiders were roaming the countryside, it served to drive Darkstream contracts, not to mention increasing the money they made from those contracts. Considering that reports say the mercenaries wield mostly Darkstream weaponry, it all kind of fits, doesn’t it?”
“I don’t know about that,” Gabe said with a shrug. “Where else does anyone get guns? The system’s flooded with Darkstream-issue weaponry, sir. We have to make money, meaning we can’t discriminate too much between buyers, though we do run background checks, as you know. But it’s easy enough to fudge a background check. Other than firearms brought to the system from the Milky Way, Darkstream’ s the only game in town when it comes to guns.”
Black nodded. “The company line just rolls off your tongue, doesn’t it? I suppose it would. You have a reputation.”
“For being the first one to step foot on a planet that isn’t located in the Milky Way?”
“For being a brutal dog controlled by Darkstream, who does anything the company demands of him. Absolutely anything, the rumors say.”
Gabe stiffened. “I have a code.”
“Yes, and a pretty easy one to recite, I’d wager. If it makes money, you’ll do it. That about right?”
This time, Gabe answered with only silence. He found himself wishing for his mech.
“Has all that started to catch up with you, yet, son? Everything you’ve done? Because it usually does, for all but the most soulless men. Which are you? Soulless, or do you have a scrap of one left?”
Continued quiet, on Gabe’s part, though he clenched his fists. Usually, others found even his silence intimidating, but not Black. He just stared and stared.
With a glance down at Gabe’s clenched fists, Black nodded, as though having confirmed something. “Yes, I think you probably have a scrap of a soul left. Which means you’re headed for a crash. Try not to bring the rest of your team down when it happens, all right? And if you can muster up the strength of spirit, try not to order them to do something that will damn them forever.”
Without another word, Black exited the tiny chamber, leaving Gabe alone with his scarlet-tinged thoughts. If he’d been inside the dream, everything would have been flashing the color of blood, just as it had at the peak of his bloodlust during the Battle of Ingress.
Gingerly, he dredged up a memory from that same battle, of the flashbacks he’d experienced. Tattered Quatro corpses, strewn across a cave floor. Quatro families. The smell of burnt fur and flesh.
Then he thought of Jess—not of finding her dead, but of the way her hair flicked when she whipped her head around to smile coyly. The faint whiff of perfume whenever he’d passed her on the village green.
He realized, then, exactly why he missed her so much, when no other woman had made him feel that way:
After two long, dark decades of committing atrocity after atrocity for Darkstream—acts that were apparently starting to catch up with him at last—Jess had been the first person to ever make him experience something pure and uncomplicated and good.
He hadn’t deserved to experience that, not since he’d been a child. But Jess had made him feel it all the same. And now the Quatro had taken it from him.
Gabe knew the Quatro had at least some justification for attacking the human settlements on Eresos. Hell, he’d personally provided a fair amount of that justification.
But he didn’t care. The Quatro had also taken Jess from him, and for that reason, he would carry out at least one more horrible act.
He would slaughter every last one of them.
Chapter 44
Shut up and Shoot
While startling, the satellite images did no justice to seeing the Quatro horde with his own eyes.
Persistent neutralization fire from the city defenders kept the Quatro away from the walls, forcing them to linger near the edge of the area Plenitos’ council kept cleared of trees.
But now, they had begun to mill about, the mass
of them writhing like one gigantic, purple beast.
“They’re about to strike,” Gabe remarked. The surface of the wall’s parapet was barely large enough to accommodate his mech.
Jake Price stood nearby, and now he turned to face Gabe. “There’s no way they can breach the wall…is there?”
“They’re here, aren’t they? And I just told you they’re preparing to strike. So they must think they can, at the very least. That should trouble us.”
The idea was worrying to everyone, which Gabe could see in the way the soldiers of the garrison shifted their weight from foot to foot, occasionally exchanging nervous glances.
The occasional Quatro attack was the reason Eresos’ two cities had built walls in the first place, and until now, they’d proven fully effective.
Quatro weren’t supposed to be smart enough to try tunneling under them, as they had at Ingress. But they had, and they also made full use of human firearms.
Now, Gabe wondered whether they might have acquired the artillery necessary to bring down Plenitos’ walls.
“We need to be out there,” Price said.
“You’re right,” Gabe said. “Round up the others and meet me outside the walls, now.”
“You’re serious?”
Gabe could only see the outside of Price’s mech, but his very posture conveyed his surprise. “Maintaining total authority doesn’t mean I’m closed off to good suggestions, Price. You should try making them more often.”
“Yes, sir,” Price said, turning. He didn’t bother to make for the long set of stairs they’d used to get up here. Instead, he simply leapt from the wall, crashing to the earth below with a thump that was audible even from sixty-five meters up.
Gabe hailed Arkady Black using his com, who accepted the call. He hadn’t quite forgiven Black for the uncalled-for verbal assault, but the man remained his superior officer, and they still needed to work together as well as they could.
Inside the dream, the man appeared alongside Gabe, atop the parapet.
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